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That’s five years worth of hair growing on the head of Andre Ellington, so he doesn’t want to lose it. He especially doesn’t want to lose it on the football field, but he lost

some of his beloved dreadlocks Sunday, which might have been the strangest part of a strange game. The rookie running back was tackled, Jaguars defensive end Jason Babin ended up with a handful of it (right) and it ended up on the ground, only to have Cardinals defensive end Frostee Rucker rescue and return it.

“I didn’t think I was going to get it back,” Ellington said. “I was talking to (Jaguars defensive end) Andre Branch, we are pretty good friends, I told him, ‘I’m gonna get your boys, they pulled my hair out.’ But it’s all good.”

Amazingly, Ellington said he didn’t feel it, although “you don’t feel it when you are being tackled by 300-pounders.” He didn’t even realize it had happened until he saw Babin holding it up. “I was like, ‘Oh man.’ He was like, ‘It’s part of the uniform.’ I was like, ‘Alright. I’ll remember that.’ ”

Ellington later tweeted out he’d just stich back in the loose part. I didn’t really know you could do that, but hey, Rucker is a hero, apparently. Ellington did say he was just happy with the win, which is good, because not only did he have hairs yanked out (ouch, by the way) but he was held to three yards on eight carries (ouch again.)

This game had a little of everything. Big plays, bad officiating, crazy calls, a few turnovers and yet another dominant defensive showing after not exactly a bad but more of a weird start. But lookie here: The Cardinals are 6-4, reeling off three wins in a month after that Seattle loss. The schedule gets tougher, with division leaders Indy and Philly next. But the Cards are where they want to be.

— The Newark Star-Ledger reported the Cardinals game in Philly will be flexed to “Sunday Night Football.” Not a surprise. It is supposed to be Giants-Redskins, and with all the Thanksgiving games (and with Chiefs-Broncos Part II unavailable after Part I was on SNF tonight) there aren’t a ton of choices better than two potential playoff teams. It would be the Cards’ first Sunday night appearance since the Vikings game in Arizona was flexed into the spot in 2009. UPDATE: Here’s an opposing report saying it won’t happen. We’ll see this week. UPDATE II: Monday morning the NFL announced that “Sunday Night Football” was going to stay Giants-Redskins, and the Eagles-Cardinals game is staying as a 1 p.m. kickoff in Philly.

— Michael Floyd was spectacular Sunday. Forget the 91-yard play for a moment, he made a catch on the sideline for 22 yards that was incredible. He made a nice play on the long TD, too. His 193 yards are a career-high, and that threat means a lot for the Cards going down the stretch.

— Carson Palmer did not throw an interception Sunday. (OK, he did, but it didn’t count.) First time that’s happened this season.

— Palmer looked good. He said afterward he had a clean pocket, and again, that’s the book on Carson – if you give him a comfortable place within which to throw, he will do well. That’s exactly what happened.

— The Cardinals didn’t have a turnover for the first time since the third week of last season.

— The lopsided way the Cards had their offense today – 419 yards passing, 14 yards rushing – reminded me of the 2006 game in Minnesota when Matt Leinart threw for 405 yards but the Cards just ran the ball five times. The Cards lost that game. It’s not like the Cards didn’t try Sunday, with 24 attempts, but against the worst rushing defense in the league? It was surprising, to say the least.

— Special teams did not have a good day at all. The Cards allowed 36 yards a kickoff return, Dave Zastudil looked like he didn’t hit some punts as solidly as usual and more importantly – much more importantly – there were injuries. Justin Bethel went out of the game early after an illegal blindside block left him with a possible concussion, while fellow gunner Teddy Williams was lost for the season after tearing his Achilles. It hurts to lose Williams. Bethel’s status is up in the air, but it was clear how much the special teams need him after he left the game. That’s what happens when a Pro Bowl-caliber player goes down.

— Among the special teams problems, Patrick Peterson muffed a fair catch. He got it back somehow, but punt returning has turned into such tough sledding for him.

— One of the reasons the Cards had a tough time putting the game away? Field position was rarely in their favor, at least until late. The Cards started possessions on their own 3, 16, 9, 10, 2 and 10.

— There wasn’t a big crowd. It was kind of sad. “It’s like a morgue,” Cardinals tackle Eric Winston said. “It makes a three-point lead seem like 20.”

That’s good for now. Lot of flight left, but I have some other stuff I need to get to. Tomorrow, it’s Colts week, Arians against his ex-team week. It will be fun.

What’s up with Peterson on punt returns? Last year, they weren’t kicking to him. This year, they are – and he looks nothing like the returner he was in his rookie year. Very hesitant, it seems. Looks like a lack of confidence to me.

Some of your blogs I get the photos with, but others I do not — like with this article, there’s no photo, just a blank white space. Why do I get some but not others? Can you tell me what I need to do? (by the way, I dont know what a cache or a cookie is, in case I need to refresh those……) Thx.

Wow what a tough game… I really thought we passed the ball the best all season. Even though it was against the Jaguars, they still played good football. We did not take them for granted and im glad for that. This was one of those games that was a must win and we delivered. I was watching Fitz most of the game and it looks like he has really lost a step in speed out there. Dont know if its the hamstring or father time. I have yet to see a lob thrown to Fitz this year. He usually catches those. On that drive they stopped us on the goal line, I really thought we would try it then. Looking at the remaining games, I see us wining the majority of them. I really like our chances against Indy in our house! They dont give us Cardinals fans enough credit, our stadium is very loud and the atmosphere is electric. Something smells good, can you say playoffs?

Very good win and Carson Palmer’s best day as a Cardinal. I know he had the one horrible interception that was not an interception, (Thank you to who ever called that time out and Darren it would be interesting to know who called time out and why) Carson just seems to try to force the ball to Fitz too much, but I choose to focus on all his other passes and 400 yards and the pocket was clean some, but he was hit a lot and remember our passing game did this with zero run game.

Defense really stood up in 2nd half when Jags had great field position and we shut them down. Abraham, Dansby, Washington, really looked good and I did not see Peterson on D until the Jags last offensive play so he must have been lights out again. Peterson on punt returns does not even look like himself and I said that before the fumble. Jags punter boomed a couple and he did nothing with them.

Our kickoff coverage team did not look good even before the injuries, but I do like how feely will stick his nose in there. Hope Justin Bethel is okiay. A great pickup by our team and one of my favorite players.

Floyd was awesome and Housler has had two good games in a row.

Tied with San Fran for 2nd place at 6 – 4 is great in my book. My opinion is if we can get an oline we will have a top five NFL team for several years.

I think we go oline early and often in the draft next year. What say the rest of you?

Hey Darren can you maybe make a post or something that puts together all the crazy stats that our defense has? I saw a pic on instagram from Mathieu and it showed a animation showing that our d has the 4th most take aways and we have the most players with 2+ takeaways aswell. I didn’t know that and I have a feeling our d has some other stats that a lot of people didnt know (maybe we dont). I know our defense is good but I would really like to see some stats!

Looking good big red! Keep it up , anybody else freak when Kerry Was on the other team receiving , I was like wait ……what? Oh yeah we cut him, crap what a game we gotta get behind Palmer this week he needs to be extra great this week.

Also, if the league wants parity why not let all west coast teams play the 4:00 game ET instead of the early game. Waiting for the kick off when most players body clocks think its time for breakfast is a big disadvantage.

It’s very refreshing to see this team gain confidence in each other and get better and better each week. The last few years when that wan’t the case was obviously a real downer so it’s good to see that change. I have to agree that I think we have a better chance to beat Indy at home than Philly on the road, but right now anything can happen. Great to see two first year coaches turning their teams around too. GO CARDS!

That Sunday night game is going to be a lot of fun if we can beat Indy this week. If we’re 6-5 going into it, it’s much less compelling as far as the playoffs are concerned (yeah, I know, we could always win 5 in a row, or all the other contenders could start losing to Minnesota and Tampa Bay, but realistically our chances are not that good even now given our schedule compared to everyone else’s; we’re probably toast if we can’t beat Indy).

JoeBlow: I’d like to go back and see some of the returns from a couple years ago and see how they started. Peterson seems to me like he’s trying to do too much now — like if he doesn’t break one for a score, he’s failed. I feel like there have been several opportunities where he could have just run forward and gotten 10+ yards easily but instead he catches the ball, stands there a bit sizing things up, starts running sideways, changes his mind, reverses, runs backwards and sideways the other way, and ends up losing 4 yards instead of gaining 10.

Shocking how bad our running game was against a poor run defense, but maybe Jax game-planned to stop the run and that’s why we got 400+ passing yards. 3 straight good games from Palmer against teams with lost seasons.. but now let’s keep it up against teams that have more than 2 wins.

I love cerebral QB’s like Manning and Luck, but would be quite happy to see Luck have his worst game as a pro next week.

I was offended by the way the jaguar player put on a show of tearing his hair out. What a twit. Glad we won, but that was very unsportsman like behavior. You may be able to have it braided back in. Im sure their are a lot of Salons that would be happy to fix it for you. Even girls don’t fight like that. and shows its a GREAT thing Jaguars are at the total bottom of NFL.. Even the 49ers have improved their manners.

Joe67: Yeah, they gave up 14 early points. But it wasn’t like Jax marched down the field for two long drives making us look silly. On the first drive the D got Jax into what looked like a 3-and-out but Jax, having nothing to lose, went for it on 4th-and-1 and then pulled out a surprise pass play when everyone was expecting a run. So we got burned, but that was kind of fluky. 2nd drive they started with great field position (in our territory) after the KO return, got 15 bonus yards on the first run due to a penalty, and then later we had ’em stopped and they would’ve been kicking a FG (or having to go for it on 4th and goal from the 3, which I doubt they would’ve done) except that Bell decided to open his mouth and drew a post-play taunting foul after the 3rd down stop. So it wasn’t like a poor offensive team was having their way with us… the first drive was really just one play and the second drive they got helped by two big penalties.

Much love to all of the Cardinals and You, Thanks for playing so well for Arizona..I bless you all;)
Can we please have someone else do punt returns, I don’t think it’s smart to have Peterson risk himself because we need him on defense, plus kick returning will wear you down and so less reaction time on pass defense..
Well other than that y’all are playing well and it’s a joy to see..
I love you

Interesting how Palmer’s and Eli Manning’s seasons are very comparable so far. Through 10 games they are almost exactly equal in yards (2,586 to 2,573, Manning leads slightly), attempts (364-358, Manning), and therefore YPA (7.19-7.12, Palmer). Manning has fewer completions and therefore a lower completion %, but they also have both had an INT problem (17-15, Manning). But both have played better lately — 2 INT’s in 4 games for Manning, 2 INT’s in 3 for Palmer, and 4 straight wins for NYG, 3 straight for AZ.

Did anyone notice on Floyds long pass completion that Larry was running down to help block and couldn’t keep up with defender. I still think he is maybe hurting more than we realize. Sure have to appreciate his effort. What a great player.

This was one time our offense looked better than our defense starting out and it’s frustrating to know what kind of defense and secondary we have WHEN THEY FEEL LIKE IT’S CRITICAL. Seems like as Palmer gets better and the offense starts coming together the defense doesn’t feel the need to be all over it from the start. I expect that to change at home against Indy but a playoff team needs to play the full sixty. Of the other teams with our same record, I question whether we could beat any of them making stupid mistakes (taunting…STUPID CHARITY YARDS DONATED) and having the fumbles, drops, interceptions (that wasn’t really???). Of course, I know, fans will say..”but all teams do that”…no excuse…we really can’t afford to. While that was a beautiful TD by Floyd, after the first couple of drops I almost couldn’t believe that Palmer was still targeting him, would say he redeemed himself but was hardly “awesome”. A lot was being made of Ellington’s hair which looked like extensions to me and I was more concerned about the loss of Bethel! Agree that Peterson’s play seems to have declined and think perhaps because he’s having to do too many thiings without the focus on a few, but still is one of the most complete athletes in the NFL. I like the more varied opportunities Mendenhall was given and thought he had a pretty good game. So far we are the only team in our division without a divisional win and the only team who hasn’t won by twenty or more so there is still plenty area for improvement before being a playoff team. I worry about the Eagles game…the weather may be on their side in a few weeks and like everybody else they are getting better with each week under Foles.

WOW, I could watch Floyd’s catch and run ( and run…and run ) all day!!! Amazing! Hoping we will see more from Floyd going forward.

Same goes for Carson Palmer, who – finally, in Week 10 – was a pleasure to watch. Granted it was a lousy team that everyone has been able to throw against, but…I’ll take it. In a game where he should have come up big, he did. I’m hoping it will carry over into the games where we really might need to put points on the board. Nice to see him play a game w/out an INT. THAT also needs to carry over. We don’t have any more games against Jacksonville on the schedule.

Hate to look ahead, but someone mentioned the game against the Eagles…just be aware that their win yesterday against the Redskins ( NOT a very good team ) was the first game they have won at home in OVER A CALENDER YEAR!!! I think I would actually rather play them THERE than out west. Let’s just hope it’s not a bitter cold December day in Philly that day. DEFINITELY a game the Cardinals can win. And OH, how friggin sweet that would be! I hate the Eagles.